The Storm of Synthetic Bling

If Khadi went from being a tool in India’s nationalist movement and a symbol of Swaraj,humble cotton in the new century finds itself as the hero of the sustainable fashion movement. It is green,organic,globally relevant. A series of interventions in growing organic cotton,separating the bales,separating the yarn,weaving or looming it requires a chain of manufacturing and design efficiencies. As a result; only the rich and elite can afford it.

So what does the rest of India wear? TV bling—synthetic cheap polyesters or artificial crepes and chiffons with industrial sequins and embroidery on them. Fashion weeks may toy with and tout Indian textiles as their ‘new,contemporary turnaround’ and label it Modern India. But the fact is that it is TV fashion that the real India is obsessed with,among the masses fashion weeks are irrelevant.

Look around at the middle and working classes everywhere in cities too and don’t just count the migrant population. Also observe the well-to-do business classes of Tier 2 to Tier 5 cities and towns whose loudest acknowledgement of fashion is via bling. What is fashionable must shine as embellishment is synonymous with the new.

Women across India including Varanasi the home of hand woven saris now wear Surat saris. If a Surat sari (the town in Gujarat supplies one of out of three saris worn by middle class India) was a printed polyester or handloom textile formerly,today it is a frightening gold and bronze,silver and green,fuschia and orange assimiliation with hundreds of shining embellishments.

Large factories work multiple shifts to create this industrial bling that then sells upwards of Rs 300 and goes up to a few thousands of rupees,given the buyer’s budget.

Last weekend,I went to see the Taj Mahal yet again. Nine out of ten women I saw there were wearing synthetic materials,either as saris or as salwar kameezes. Except an odd older Bengali lady wearing the good old cotton sari,I couldn’t spot anyone wearing a hand woven textile (see the photographs,got you some).

These were not underprivileged people—this is the real middle class India,which spends a lot on clothes,going by retail statistics of spending habits in Tier 3,4 and Tier 5 cities. This same trend of TV saris was noticeable on women at roadside dhabas and even at Mathura and Vrindavan.

In the South,where the older lot are still faithful to Kanjeevaram silks,the younger girls want ‘fancy’ saris. Fancy reads as crepes and chiffons with embroidery and sequins. These may employ a higher hierarchy of materials and quality of work. But it is the same difference in choice.

The shutting downs of cotton mills,the surge of industrial embellishments (as opposed to hand embroidery) and the extreme popularity of sequinned synthetic wear and the rejection of cotton has also influenced washing and laundry trends. I walked up to a few women to ask whether they washed their sequinned clothes at home. No,came the reply. They sent it for drycleaning,they said.

A young mother from Punjab was half offended with my question. “How can I wash this at home?” she asked,looking at her diaphanous pista green salwar kameez with a silver zari slip inside.

Now let’s do the arithmetic—synthetic saris and salwar kameezes,everything sequinned and emebellished that can only be dry cleaned. Doesn’t ‘Indian fashion’ at least deserve a rethink?